In Riegelsville, it's called Easton Road. New Hopers call it Main Street. Down in Morrisville, it's known as Delmorr Avenue.

In Yardley, they call it Delaware Avenue. Easton calls it Delaware Drive. In Washington Crossing, it actually goes by the name of Embarcation Road. Nearly everywhere else, it's called River Road.

It is the road that borders the Delaware River from Morrisville to Easton and, therefore, follows alongside Delaware Canal State Park for more than 60 miles.

It's also a state highway. Actually, it's two state highways. The road starts out in Morrisville as Route 32, turns into Route 611 in Bridgeton Township and then continues north as 611 into Northampton County.

Confused yet?

Well, perhaps people who live on Main Street in New Hope or River Road in Tinicum Township or even Embarcation Road in Washington Crossing have it figured out by now, but what about the tractor-trailer driver who may be looking for the shortest way to get from Interstate 95 in Lower Bucks to Interstate 78 in Northampton County?

Apparently, dozens of truckers a day try using the road, and most wish they hadn't.

"It's a nightmare for truckers," says Kenneth Lewis, superintendent of Delaware Canal State Park. "The road is not conducive to tractor-trailers, and they don't want to use it once they get on it."

For virtually its entire length, River Road is a two-lane highway that is truly one of eastern Pennsylvania's most picturesque routes.

Stop anywhere along the road, and you can see the historic Delaware Canal as well as its towpath. In the summer, you can see boaters and tubers enjoying the river. And there are dozens of canal locks, old barns and covered bridges along the way.

But there are also dozens of tricky bends, hairpin curves and even a section of the road in Bridgeton Township called the "Narrows," where the cliffs of the Bucks County palisades meet the asphalt of River Road with only the barest of shoulders as a buffer.

"If you look at it on a map, it looks like a good way to get to I-78 from I-95," Lewis says.

That is why the Delaware Canal State Park Advisory Commission as well as the Friends of the Delaware Canal have launched a campaign to get the road renamed.

They have suggested to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation as well as to the governments of Bucks and Northampton counties that a more proper name for the road should be "Delaware River Scenic Drive."

But not officially.

People who have been giving their addresses as River Road for years need not worry about having a change of address thrust upon them. Susan Taylor, executive director of the Friends of the Delaware Canal, says the new name would only appear on maps produced by PennDOT and the two counties as well as on signs that would be posted along the route from Morrisville to Easton.

As far as the post office would be concerned, she says, the old addresses would still apply.

Formal requests for the informal change have been made to the two counties and to PennDOT.

"It would help divert the big trucks who don't necessarily want to be on that road," Taylor says.

Actually, the unofficial designation of Delaware River Scenic Drive has already been given to the road by the state government. It happened in 1989, which is when the General Assembly adopted legislation to refurbish the canal.

Part of the legislation dealt with the problem of giving the canal more of its own identity.

At that time, the canal was known officially as the Pennsylvania Canal, and it could be found in Theodore Roosevelt State Park. The legislation changed the name of the canal to the Delaware Canal and the name of the park to Delaware Canal State Park.

The legislation also provided the new unofficial name for the road, but Taylor says PennDOT has never followed up on the General Assembly's act by changing the names on the official state transportation maps. County maps also do not reflect the change.

So when a truck driver looks at a map, he'll see Routes 32 and 611 providing access to nearby interstate highways.

Lewis says highway signs and maps that show the road as a "scenic route" may go a long way toward convincing truck drivers that they would do well not to use it.

"It's not the intent to force truckers off the road," Lewis says. "The intent is to advise them they may not want to be here."